Yesterday started with an e-mail from an RVing friend, asking if I had heard anything about Mac McCoy, who has taught RV fire safety seminars at RV rallies and shows. There was apparently a rumor going around that Mac was very ill, and possibly even dead. This, of course, really upset me, because Mac still owes me a dinner or two.
Not one to beat around the bush about serious things like that, I went right to the source and called Mac to ask him if he was dead. He said he is alive and I don’t think he’d lie about a thing like that, even to get out of buying me dinner. Whew, that’s good to know!
Mac is hanging out in Yuma for a while and said he’ll be headed to Gillette, Wyoming for The Escapees RV Club’s 53rd Escapade RV rally June 30 – July 5th. Mac asked if we were going to Escapade. We’ve talked about going as vendors if we’re finished with our annual medical checkups here in Arizona, but I don’t know if we could get in at this late date even if we are free to hit the road.
I have no idea where rumor like this one about Mac gets started. Years ago Terry and I were traveling in our MCI bus conversion and found ourselves at a Corps of Engineers campground in Fort Smith, Arkansas. This was back when we used a Hughes tripod internet dish for internet access and tree cover prevented us from getting a signal, so we were not online for two or three days. When we left and finally did get online, our inbox was flooded with e-mails from people who had heard we had been killed or seriously injured in an accident. Apparently somebody saw or heard of a bus conversion accident in Oklahoma and decided that it must be us, since we were incommunicado. I promise, if we ever plan a catastrophe like that, I’ll give you all plenty of advance notice so you don’t have to worry.
A solenoid located in a compartment under our Winnebago’s driver’s side window that controls charging our house batteries has been giving us problems, so I ordered a replacement and yesterday we installed it.
Okay, I was using the royal “we.” Greg installed it while I watched, told dirty jokes, and got in the way. Hey, if we’re going to use the royal we, it only makes sense to have a court jester, right? Doesn’t the look on Greg’s face say, “damn, he suckered me into doing his work again!”?
Thanks for your help Greg, it’s much appreciated, as always.
Of course, I can get dirty even if I don’t do anything, and by the time we (okay, Greg) was done, I had dirt smeared across my shirt. I’m about as worthless inside the house as I am outside, but at least Miss Terry has taught me to put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket. So I opened the medicine cabinet to get the stain remover and proceeded to wet the stain down with my aftershave lotion. I guess we’ll call this style Eau de Nick!
A little after 4 p.m. we went to #1 Eastern Super Buffet with Greg and Jan, where we met Ken and Paula Lougee for dinner. Ken and Paula are friends and longtime vendors at RV rallies, selling quality custom-made water hoses, water filters, and other related water purification products. But they have taken a break from the rally circuit and have been working as gate guards in Texas. It was fun to see them again and to listen as they compared their gate guarding experiences with Greg and Jan, who have also done that and are preparing to again soon.
I’m too lazy for work like that. I’d rather sit inside and write books. And when I’m not writing them, I enjoy reading other authors’ work. One good author I discovered a while back is indie author Scott Langrel, who was born and raised in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town that is the setting for a fun novel of the same name by another fine author, Adriana Trigiani. You can get to know Scott better in his interview just posted on my self-publishing blog.
Thought for The Day – Never hit a guy with glasses. Always use your fists.